Page 93 of Owned By Two

Qeyel turned to Uhti, smiled, and led him toward his office. “How about we discuss what you require in my office?”

He entered his office and Uhti followed.

I stopped when I felt a hand on my shoulder and followed it up to the monster of a guard it was attached to.

He shook his head.

“It’s protocol, I’m afraid,” Qeyel said. “The fewer people involved with the kind of business we conduct, the better. I’m sure you understand.”

The light cast across Qeyel’s face came from a red light lava lamp on a high shelf, its slow globs brought ugliness to his features that I hadn’t seen before.

It was the expression of someone hiding a secret, someone with ulterior motives besides the ones we already knew about.

I had seen the look on countless commanding officers’ faces in the past and had learned to be extremely wary of it.

More than once it had led to the unnecessary death of a teammate.

I had survived because of my sense of detecting those very looks in the enemy… and my allies.

I shifted my eyes to Uhti, who smiled, completely ignorant of the danger we found ourselves in.

With no way for me to pass a message on to him, I smiled back and nodded. “Of course. I understand. You take your time. I’ll wait out here. Let me know if you need me.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Qeyel said, his tone possessing the same studied warmth as his fake greeting earlier. “We won’t be needing you anytime soon.”

The door automatically slid shut, leaving me by myself with the twin monster guards, one on either side of me.

I turned to look up at them in turn and saw that their attention was focused entirely on me.

They didn’t even blink.

Their bodies might have been upgraded, I thought, and if their expressions were anything to go by, they could do with upgrading their personalities a little too.

I smiled at them and tensed my body as I coiled my legs, preparing to launch an attack at them that might come at any moment.

It would be a hell of a fight.

The only question was… when and if it was going to be necessary.

29

UHTI

Qeyel looked verydifferent from what I had pictured in my mind.

I had never met him in person and it was James who had introduced me to him in the first place.

I had asked once how they had come to know each other and gotten silence in response.

I never did ask again.

It never paid to ask James the same question multiple times.

He never lost his temper but you could always sense it, seething beneath the surface.

He had an impatience for stupidity that bordered on the extreme.

When the door slid shut and Qeyel turned to me, he clapped his hands and said:

---